Master of Business Administration Concentration in Finance

Mentors: Prof. R. Goyenko

The Finance concentration emphasizes on how firms raise capital and on the optimal allocation of capital for investments. Students gain expertise in three subfields of finance - banking, corporate finance and investments. They gain an understanding of the functions related to corporate fund management and investment decision-making. This concentration prepares students for multiple careers, including investment banking, corporate finance, corporate treasury, asset management or risk management, among others.

Students must complete a minimum of two required and three complementary courses. Recommended courses do not count towards the concentration but do count as electives and are suggested depending on career goals:

Finance: The prime objective is to provide the student with a rational framework for investment. The portfolio and capital market theory of FINE 650 is extended and the empirical evidence supporting these and competing hypotheses is investigated for both individual securities and portfolios.

Finance: Fixed income securities and their uses for financial engineering as well as risk management at both the trading desk and the aggregate firm level. This will involve a treatment of basic fixed income mathematics, risk management concepts, term structure modelling, derivatives valuation theory and credit risk analysis.

Finance: Demand for and supply of money and other financial instruments by and to banks and near banks. Simple analytical models integrating the Canadian Institutional aspects. The role of the banking sector in the money creation process. International aspects of monetary policy.

Finance: Concepts and techniques developed in earlier courses are extended and/or applied to problems faced by managers in Corporate Finance. Such problems include: working capital management, capital budgeting, capital structure, dividend policy, cost of capital and mergers and acquisitions. Stresses the application of theory and techniques and extensive use is made of case studies.

Finance: Primary focus will be on global investments. The course will deal with the theoretical foundations of modern international portfolio theory and empirical evidence in a real world setting. It will span the developed markets of Europe and Japan, NICS of the Pacific rim and emerging markets. The primary objective is to prepare a new generation of managers who can operate effectively in the new global investment environment.

Finance: The international financial environment as it affects the multinational manager. In-depth study of the various balance of payments concepts, adjustment of the external balance, and the international monetary system will be followed by a review of theory and institutional aspects of the foreign exchange and the international (Eurodollar) markets.

Finance: Focus on the operational problems of financial management in the multinational enterprise: financing of international trade, determining the firm's exposure to foreign exchange rate changes, protection against exchange losses, international capital budgeting, multinational cost of capital, working capital management and international portfolio diversification.

Accounting: An in-depth analysis of corporate financial reporting principles and practices, with emphasis on developing the abilities of the student to discriminate between the form and substance of corporate financial reports. Analysis of all components of the financial statements with the effect of reference to alternative practices on financial reports.